


Of Man or Angel

by Fugitive



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Destiel Forever Fic Challenge, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-05
Updated: 2016-03-04
Packaged: 2018-03-29 03:50:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 15,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3881179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fugitive/pseuds/Fugitive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From the Destiel Forever Facebook group Prompt #3:</p><p>First time admitting he’s in love with Cas. End Verse where Dean gets stuck in the future longer than planned and realises he loves Cas (Future!Cas survived the battle, future!Dean didn't) and when he comes back to his own time he has to deal with loving Cas and knowing that Cas doesn't remember their love and it's super hard on Dean.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One - 2014

Lucifer’s white suit glowed in the sunlight, and his eyes glowed even brighter as he surveyed Dean. But suddenly his gaze flicked past Dean to something behind him, and he had a different expression in his eyes entirely.  
  
“Dean!” Human Cas’s voice roared out behind him, and Dean turned away from the white haze of Lucifer’s presence. Cas’s eyes lit on Dean’s future counterpart, lying dead on the ground behind Lucifer, and Dean’s scalp prickled as he saw the look in Cas’s eyes, even as Cas registered Dean’s own living presence. Dean had heard the expression ‘rage of angels’ before, but to see it in Cas’s face brought the saying to frightening reality. The look in Cas’s eyes as he turned to Lucifer was pure murder as he charged. Dean’s first instinct was to get out of the way, because no mortal man in their right mind would get in the middle of a fight between Lucifer and Castiel.  
  
But then Dean remembered that Cas was only human, something Cas seemed to have forgotten momentarily. Dean threw himself at Cas and shouted, “No!”  
  
Cas tried to side step Dean, but Dean was ready for him and their bodies crashed together, Cas struggling to get past Dean, his eyes wild.  
  
Suddenly the light from behind him dimmed, and Dean spun around to see Lucifer gone.  
  
“No!” cried Cas.  
  
“Cas!” Dean loosed his grip on Cas as he realized that he had stopped struggling to get past him, but Cas turned his rage on Dean.  
  
“Why did you stop me?” Cas screamed into Dean’s face. “I could have-”  
  
“You could have what? You’re human, Cas! Fully human! What, where you going to take on Lucifer? The most powerful archangel of all?”  
  
Cas staggered, and suddenly Dean felt slippery blood under his hands, and realized Cas was injured. Cas turned to him, looking confused, and said, “I could have delayed him to give you a chance to get away.”  
  
Dean shook his head. It was typical of Cas, to think of protecting Dean before his own safety. It was an admirable trait when Cas was an invulnerable angel – not so much in Cas’s present state, when it became just downright dangerous, making him reckless.  
  
Dean said, “You’re hurt.”  
  
Cas looked wildly around them and said, “We need to get out of here, Dean. The others, you-” Cas didn’t seem to be able to bring himself to look at Dean’s dead body on the ground several yards from them, but Dean felt Cas shudder under his hands even as he pointedly didn’t look in that direction, “-they’re all gone. We need to get back to the trucks and get out of here.”  
  
“What happened, Cas? What happened here?”  
  
“Lucifer got to him. He’s dead. I tried… I couldn’t…” Cas’s eyes were dimming, and Dean realized that he needed to get him back to the compound for treatment, fast. Cas’s body leaned harder against his, the ammunition belts empty, the handgun empty of a clip, the knives and fatigues soaked with blood. He sagged into Dean’s grasp and was suddenly a dead weight, and Dean glanced around quickly, wondering where Lucifer had got to. Would the devil come back? Why had he left?  
  
Several stray bullets whined and spat past them, narrowly missing. Dean bent over and grunted with effort as he hoisted Cas’s heavy form onto his shoulders, then turned and ran as fast as he could through the rubble and the distant shouting, back to the trucks. On the way, he passed several more bodies. He almost stopped, but jogged on doggedly. Now was not the time to tend to the dead. Now the fight had become a battle to keep the living alive, and Cas was losing blood at an alarming rate. It was dripping down steadily over Dean’s shoulder.  
  
He found the truck that Cas had been in, opened the door and lowered Cas into the passenger seat. Dean leaned across him to see the ignition and swore as he realized the keys weren’t in the vehicle. He patted Cas down, looking for keys. He found a set but it was huge; Cas seemed to have keys for everything, for all the trucks and probably the compound buildings too. He pushed Cas’s legs into the truck and shut the door, then raced around to the driver’s door and jumped in, fumbling through the set of keys. Finally he managed to find the right one, and started the truck. It roared into life and he backed at maximum speed out of the cul-de-sac and then did a quick turn and slammed the accelerator down. The gunfire had stopped, and he knew the battle had ended. But that meant the opposition would be free to pursue them, and he wanted to get away fast so he didn’t give them a chance to trail him back to the compound.  
  
Dean came to a relatively straight stretch of road and slapped Cas’s cheek, a little too hard. Cas stirred and looked at him bleary-eyed. “Dean?”  
  
“Stay with me, bud. You stay awake, you hear? We’ll get you home.”  
  
“…am home.” Cas muttered as his eyes closed again. Dean swore and pressed his foot harder onto the accelerator. It didn’t budge, and he realized that he had already pressed it as hard as it would go against the metal floor.  
  
Dean’s mind was buzzing. Would Cas be all right? Why had Lucifer disappeared so suddenly? Why hadn’t he killed Dean just as he had killed his future self? What were the angels doing? Would Dean ever get back to 2009, and if so when?


	2. Chapter Two - 2014

The trip back to the compound was a nightmare, with Cas slumped motionless at his side, except when his body swayed against the door or against Dean when he went around a particularly sharp bend.  
  
When they got there, Dean was expecting trouble. After all, he was coming back after losing their entire senior command, including their leader. But everyone was too much in shock, and too busy looking after Cas, to register the true import of what had happened. Dean wondered if any of the others had realized that he was not his future self, because they waited for orders from him and followed them quickly. That, he decided as he watched Cas’s pale face gain some colour after a hasty blood transfusion and an even hastier patching up job by the medics, was an issue that could wait for the morning.  
  
But when the last worker had gone home, when he was left alone in the leader’s cabin, holding Cas’s too-cool hand in both of his when the medics were out of the cabin, he began to wonder what they would do – how the group would survive without a leader.  
  
And he wondered how soon whatever angel it was that had done this to Dean, would end the lesson he had been sent to learn, and take him back to the past, leaving Cas and the group alone and leaderless.  
  
As that thought crossed his mind, Cas stirred and blinked open his eyes blearily, then looked up at Dean. A ghost of a smile came to his face and he whispered, “Dean.”  
  
Dean smiled and closed his hands around Cas’s. Cas gripped his hand briefly and went back to sleep. Dean’s smile faded quickly and he felt a chill of regret. If only that smile had been for him, not the version of him that had died that day.  
  
  
  
The next morning, Dean woke up on the spare bunk in the living area of the cabin. He reached under his pillow for his gun, and found one there – left no doubt by the other Dean. Well, of course it would figure they’d have habits in common. Then he realized what had awoken him as he heard Cas’s voice.  
  
“Dean.” Cas was standing up, clinging to the rough wooden post that separated the bedroom from the living area, his hands slipping down it, becoming embedded with half a dozen splinters as Dean watched. Cas’s eyes were haunted.  
  
Dean sat up, staring at Castiel, but hesitated when he saw the wild look in Cas’s eyes. There was something dark and dangerous in them, something Dean had never seen directed at him before.  
  
“Dean, I want to be an angel again,” said Cas.  
  
“You should be in bed,” growled Dean, but it was as if Cas had not heard him.  
  
“I want to be an angel again because-” Cas, who Dean had to remind himself was now very human, seemed to have lost his train of thought and fell silent for a while, then looked at Dean and said, “But you don’t know about the bad things, do you? You’re not him, and you haven’t seen me do all the things that I’ve done as a human. Sure, you don’t have his memories, but with you, I have a clean slate… and you’re all I have…” Cas’s voice trailed off. He stared at Dean intently as if willing him to understand.  
  
Dean frowned, trying to get a handle on what Cas was trying to say. He reminded Cas, “You’ve told me about it. I’ve seen the drugs. I’ve seen the women.”  
  
“Yes, but you haven’t lived beside me as it’s happened.” Cas seemed to be slowly sagging down the post and Dean stood up, moving toward him to catch him should he fall.  
  
Cas held a hand out, blocking his approach. “I want to be an angel again, because… he was torn apart in front of me, Dean, and I wanted to put him back together and-” his voice broke “- I couldn’t. I tried. Lucifer let me try, and he laughed at me.”  
  
His eyes flicked over to Dean. “And there’s only one of you left now. I can’t let the same thing happen to you. I don’t want you torn apart, and I don’t want Zachariah to take you away from me again. If I have my power back I can stop that from happening.”  
  
“Zachariah? Zachariah did this to me?” If Dean ever figured out how to kick an angel’s butt, Zachariah was now first on his list. Or maybe second, after Lucifer.  
  
“He warned me, before you arrived. Told me not to hurt you, or I’d destroy both of you. Told me you were the real deal.”  
  
“Big of him,” said Dean in a sour voice. But then he looked at the wound seeping blood at Cas’s side, and at his pale face. He said in a gentler voice, “You’re a mess, Cas.”  
  
“You made me like this!” snapped Cas. “If only you hadn’t come to my room that night!”  
  
Dean was taken aback by Cas’s sudden vehemence. Dean had been speaking of his physical state, not his emotional state; he still wasn’t used to Cas actually having an emotional state. Then it took him a moment to realize that Cas meant the other Dean, not him. He felt his pulse quicken and asked, “I came to your room?”  
  
“Or maybe if you’d come to my room any of the other nights over the last five years that I begged you to….” said Cas in a broken whisper.  
  
Dean took in a shuddering breath as another realization hit. “So the other night, when those two women were each accusing me - Dean - of being with the other one…”  
  
Cas gave that crazy, weird half-laugh that was part of his new human persona and pointed out, “They wouldn’t have both been accusing him, if he was with one of them.”  
  
Dean tried to breathe evenly, but he could hardly find his voice to ask, “He was with you that night?” His mind was reeling with the implications of that.  
  
Castiel met his eyes and nodded. “With me… for the first time.”  
  
Dean closed his eyes as a wave of sympathy coursed through him. He could hardly believe what he was hearing, but he couldn’t help be curious. “Why for the first time? Why did you wait until that night?”  
  
Cas was silent for a long time. “Can you tell someone a secret if it’s about themselves and they should already know it?”  
  
Dean shook his head. “What, you’re saying I already knew about this? I don’t understand.”  
  
“You must understand. He told me, so you must already know.”  
  
Dean shook his head, frustrated. “You’re not making any sense.”  
  
Cas looked at him and gave an odd smile, looking wistful. “He told me that he wanted me from the first night we met, in the barn. But he didn’t think anything between us was possible, because of my physiology. I’m a beam of celestial intent, Dean, remember? He thought we couldn’t do anything, and he put the idea aside. And then when I became human he told me he wanted me…” Cas’s eyes softened at the memory, “-but he didn’t want to make me a target, make me any more vulnerable than I was.”  
  
Dean was silent. He remembered watching Castiel walk into the barn, lights blowing and sparks fizzing around him, his grace barely contained by the vessel he had adopted, the air crackling with power, and Dean knowing that he had to sink a knife into this amazing being, and not wanting to, because he felt like his life had started in those moments when the door slammed open and Castiel strode purposefully in. He remembered plunging the knife into Castiel’s chest anyway, and Castiel pulling it out as though he was brushing a piece of lint off his trench coat, then looking back at Dean.  
  
Dean had wondered whether that look meant that he was going to die, but had felt strangely calm about it because he had finally met Castiel and something inside Dean told him that meeting Castiel was the reason he was on the planet.  
  
But somehow having future Cas know how long Dean had feelings for him, felt like an intrusion into Dean’s memories – an invasion of privacy. But then Dean realized that any feeling of privacy he had, was an illusion in this time. Future Dean had probably told Cas everything that mattered. They had been friends and confidantes for years, wanting each other, loving each other but denying that love for Cas’s safety.  
  
Cas went on, his voice softening. “But then last night, he came to me and said we were probably going to die anyway. He said it didn’t matter anymore. He said he wanted, just once, to know what it would be like to make love to me,” said Cas. “And I couldn’t deny him.”  
  
Dean hung his head, unable to meet Cas’s eyes. Was it some sort of cruel angelic joke, to send him here to meet Cas the very day after he and future Dean had finally made love for the first time? And did the angels expect him to step in now and fill the void left by his future self? Was that why he had been sent here? Maybe Zachariah wasn’t going to bring him back to the past, but just leave him here to look after Cas. He looked up and met Cas’s eyes, which were alert now and filled with devastating understanding as he watched Dean’s face.  
  
Castiel stared at him and shook his head. “You’re not even him.”  
  
“I’m me,” said Dean.  
  
“We haven’t fought side by side for five years as mortals,” said Cas. “I haven’t risked my life a dozen times a day for you for more than a thousand days. I have no right to ask anything of you, because I haven’t done that for you. I did it for him.”  
  
At first Dean did not know what to say to that, but then he looked at Cas and said, “I’ve fought every day. I’ve been mortal, even while you couldn’t be harmed. Doesn't that count for anything?”  
  
Cas looked puzzled and asked, “How does that mean I can ask anything of you?”  
  
Dean said, “It might not be you that’s doing the asking, Cas. It might be me.”  
  
Dean, his heart pounding, stepped over to Cas and carefully lifted his arms and wrapped them around Cas.  
  
Cas stood like a rock for so long that Dean did not think that he would respond, but suddenly Cas melted into his arms, breathing in short hitches, and said, “You were gone. You were gone.” He buried his face in Dean’s neck and sobbed for the memories that Dean would never have and that were lost to him forever. Dean held him, not knowing what to do. He hadn’t thought Cas could be any more messed up than he was, but of course, when it came to Cas, Dean always seemed to get things completely wrong.  
  
Dean felt moisture against his side and realized that practicalities would have to take priority over Cas’s emotional state. “Come back to the bunk and lie down, Cas. That dressing’s soaked through. I’ll change it for you.”  
  
Cas nodded weakly and let Dean guide him back to the bed. Dean helped him to lie back down, then pushed Cas’s shirt up and lifted the dressing aside as gently as he could. The bandage was soaked through with blood and the wound still looked raw beneath the stitches. Dean hissed, and reached for the first aid kit on the shelf beside the bed.  
  
Cas’s body wasn’t what he had expected. Of course, Dean had helped him before – carried him across his shoulders, helped him along, thrown him dead drunk into bed once, but Castiel’s angelic powers had healed Jimmy Novak’s body instantly when he had inhabited it, turning it into a surprisingly powerful, muscular body under the suit and trench coat. Human Cas however, was a different story. His skin was sleek, almost soft, but when Dean pushed a little too hard when he was cleaning the wound, his stomach tensed immediately and was surprisingly hard. It was the body of a warrior, a fighting man who needed to be fast and flexible.  
  
“Sorry,” said Dean. “Did I hurt you?”  
  
“No,” said Cas.  
  
Dean kept working, cleaning the dried blood away from around the stitches. Cas tensed slightly again as Dean ran his hand alongside the wound. Dean lightened his touch, but Cas said, “You didn’t hurt me.”  
  
Dean gave him an inquiring look.  
  
Cas hesitated, then said, “It’s just that your hands… they feel exactly like his.”  
  
Dean didn’t know how to answer, so he shrugged slightly and pursed his lips. He kept working, but as he turned away to get a fresh dressing and bent back over the wound, he suddenly felt Cas entwine a hand into the hair at the back of his head.  
  
Cas pulled him up until their faces were inches apart, but didn’t stop, and pulled Dean into a kiss. Dean closed his eyes momentarily, because to see the conflicted expression in Cas’s blue eyes was too much for him to bear.  
  
Cas whispered, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” and Dean wasn’t sure whether was apologizing to him for the look in his eyes, or whether he was apologizing to Dean’s dead counterpart for the betrayal that this might have been.  
  
“Cas,” he whispered. “Don’t. Don’t torture yourself.”  
  
Cas brought his other hand around the back of Dean’s head and pulled him closer again, planting soft kisses over his face, eyes open and drinking in Dean’s features. “It’s not torture. Not quite. If it is, then send me to hell and they can torture me forever.” His lips tasted Dean’s again, taking gentle plucks at his lips. Then he let his mouth drift down the side of Dean’s face, inhaling deeply as he did so. “It’s you. It’s really you.”  
  
Dean whispered. “It's me, Cas, but... I haven’t done this before.”  
  
There was a beat of hesitation, then Cas whispered back, “It was wonderful, having you for the first time. I’ll gladly do it again.”  
  
Dean was silent until Cas noticed and looked at him. Dean said, “I'll never have that experience."  
  
Cas smiled. “Do me a favour.”  
  
Dean frowned. “What?” But then he realized something and closed his eyes. “Anything, I’d do anything, Cas.”  
  
Cas kissed him gently and whispered, “Go back and seduce that damned angel. Show him what life’s all about.”

  



	3. 2014

Dean kissed Cas again and again. It was intoxicating being able to put his lips onto Cas’s, being able to breathe the scent of him in, being so close to him and being able to touch him, when he had never been able to do it before. But then he realized what Cas had said, and objected. “I can’t, remember? He’s an angel. It’s not physiologically possible.”  
  
Castiel whispered, “It’s not physiologically possible for a human being to be brought from the past to the future or to be taken ten thousand miles in the blink of an eye, either, but it’s possible when you’re with him. How do you think that is?”  
  
Dean frowned. “I’m not really sure. I guess he just changes things around me so that I’m capable of that?”  
  
“Go back and tell him to change things around you so you’re capable of making love to him.”  
  
Dean stroked Cas’s hair, only realizing as he did it, how many times his hands had twitched when he stood next to Castiel, because he wanted to do exactly what he was now. “And how am I supposed to convince him that he can do that without hurting me?”  
  
Cas said, “He’ll listen. He wants to listen; he wants to hear it. He’s just too frightened to hurt you.”  
  
Dean stopped to simply look at Cas, lying beneath him, his blue eyes somehow seeming to glow even though by all rights there should be nothing left to glow within them. He whispered, suddenly sad, “How long do you think we have, Cas, Before Zachariah takes me back?”  
  
“I don’t know,” said Cas.  
  
“We should wait until your wound is healed before we do anything strenuous,” sighed Dean.  
  
Cas’s slow smile surprised him. “You think this is the only time I’ve ever taken a bullet and made love the same night?”  
  
Dean cast his eyes down, thinking about first times.  
  
Cas pushed his hands deeply into Dean’s hair, leaned forward and whispered into Dean’s ear, “Go down on me.”  
  
Dean’s lips parted with shock at how forward Cas was, how different from the uptight angel he was used to. But at the same time, the heady words made his body feel instantly hot all over. “What makes you think I would?” he managed to breathe.  
  
“The expression on your face,” Cas chuckled. “I promise I’ll lie still.”  
  
Dean had no answer to that, and looked down at Cas’s body. He quickly finished replacing the clean dressing on Cas’s wound, then kissed his stomach, avoiding the injury. Cas tasted of canvas and leather and gunpowder. Dean kissed further down and pushed Cas’s robe aside, the skin beneath his lips becoming warmer and softer as he moved down Cas’s stomach and to the soft, taut skin near his dick. Dean closed his eyes and wondered why it seemed so easy, so natural to do this when so many times he had wanted it, but denied himself and Castiel. He was distracted when Cas’s dick stirred and bumped Dean’s chin, and Dean took a deep breath and turned his face to take Cas in his mouth. The first thing he noticed was the taste – salty and heady, the distillation of every whiff he had ever caught of Cas’s scent over the years he had known him, when he brushed past him or was pushed against him in the heat of a fight they were both in. The second thing that drew his attention was an ecstatic, guttural moan from Cas, and he felt Cas’s whole body seem to melt beneath his touch. Dean began to suck, and felt his own erection swell as Cas murmured ragged words of encouragement and began to writhe beneath Dean’s touch.  
  
It was easy, so painfully easy to cross that line he had never been able to bring himself to cross. And it was everything he never dared imagine it could be. He could hear Cas chanting his name in a whisper, over and over, in a desperate tone of voice, that gave Dean a heady sense of control.  
  
Cas’s skin was warm and soft under Dean’s hands. He shuddered and Dean pulled away a little to massage his tongue across the slick tip of Cas’s dick.  
  
  
Cas gave a whimper, but it was cut off halfway through as he tensed up and groaned.  
  
“Please,” Cas whispered in a broken voice.  
  
Dean moved up, keeping his hand moving slowly up and down Cas. He looked at his face and thought that he had never seen anything more beautiful than the fallen angel, who had become human for him. Cas had a lost expression on his face as he met Dean’s eyes. Cas’s vocabulary seemed to have contracted to one word. “Dean,” he whispered again.  
  
Dean smiled and kissed him gently, then moved his lips slowly down over Cas’s chest and stomach and took him in his mouth again. He used every skill he had learnt, in an admittedly long career of lovemaking, to bring Cas to the point of ecstasy again and again, so that eventually Cas just lay there, passive, his eyes helpless and locked onto Dean’s, waiting for Dean’s next move.  
  
Dean ran his tongue across the slick, tight skin on the tip of Cas’s erection. Cas shuddered and sighed, then arched his head back and whimpered when Dean did it again and again.  
  
“What is this?” whispered Cas. “Why is this different?”  
  
“What do you mean different?” asked Dean.  
  
Cas whispered, “You touch me with your hands, and it is as if you pull my soul out of my body. I become someone else, or nothing. I’m not sure which. And it’s like… being a part of God.”  
  
Dean stopped what he was doing and waited until Cas met his gaze. He meant to say something meaningful, but could only look at the expression in Cas’s eyes and match it with his own. Dean opened his mouth to talk, but could only look at Cas, feeling helpless, wondering what words could possibly describe adequately what they were both feeling.  
  
Cas looked at him, and then in a hushed, reverent tone of voice, asked, “Is this getting close to love?”  
  
“I don’t know,” whispered Dean. “If it is, then I’ve never felt it before.” He looked at Cas and kissed him. “I wish I knew.”  
  
Cas shuddered under his hands and looked down at his body. “Something’s happening. I think I’m coming.”  
  
Dean slid his hands and his mouth quickly down Cas’s body and captured him in his lips again. His cock was trembling, twitching every few seconds, and Dean took it in his mouth and sucked deeply. Cas gave a guttural cry and bitter seed pulsed out into Dean’s mouth with surprising force. Dean engulfed Cas with his mouth and swallowed him deep, again and again, letting the semen go down the back of his throat, just like he liked to be sucked in when he was on the receiving end of the same sort of attention. It must have been pleasurable, because Cas cried out his name again and again in through gritted teeth. Dean thought that if he ever went to heaven, this is what he would spend his days doing – taking his angel apart and teaching him what might be close to love.  
  
Cas was still shuddering beneath him when Dean crawled up and pulled him close and kissed him.  
  
“I can taste myself on you,” whispered Cas.  
  
Dean pulled him tight and held him and kissed him again, but did not say a word, until suddenly it struck him that this might be his last chance. At any second, he could be snatched away from human Cas for all eternity. He hesitated, but then shook off his reserve, leaned forward and crossed another bridge, whispering deliberately in Cas’s ear, “I love you.”  
  
Cas was silent for a long time, and then whispered, “Does this mean I’m going to die tomorrow?”  
  
“Why do you say that?”  
  
“Does anyone ever get to feel like this and then not die the next day?”  
  
“I want to stay,” said Dean. “I want to stay with you. I don’t want you to die and I don’t want the angels to take me back for a long time.”  
  
Cas turned to him, his eyes brimming with wonder, and whispered, “I love you.”  
  
Dean closed his eyes for a long time, letting the words sink into his soul, then whispered, “Thank you.” He felt battle-hardened arms come around him and hold him tight.

  



	4. 2014

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean finds out what Castiel really thought of him when they first met.

A few days had passed; glorious days, for Dean. His time with future Cas was made all the more bittersweet because he knew that at any given moment, it could be over. Either of them could die from being shot or contracting Croatoan, or the angels could snatch Dean back to 2009 without warning. Every look, every touch between them, was magnified in intensity by this knowledge.  
  
Dean at first had a little trouble adjusting to Cas’s easy-going human nature, but now he was starting to wonder which version of Cas he liked more; the happy-go-lucky human version, or the stick-up-his-ass angelic version. He still hadn’t decided; they both had their charms. But this version of Cas was warm and willing and accessible, and Dean knew somewhere deep down, that he was falling a lot harder for him than he should, given the transient nature of their relationship. Or maybe, for Dean, that transience just added to the attraction? He didn’t want to think about that too much.  
  
They were suiting up to head out on a raid; Chuck’s obsession with toilet paper had reached desperation point, but more importantly, they were running short on canned goods and winter was approaching.  
  
Dean walked into the living area of the cabin, held his arms out and asked Cas, “What do you think? Do I pass commando muster?”  
  
Cas looked at him and sighed, then went to the back wall and lifted down two more ammunition belts and an automatic rifle. “You’ll need these.”  
  
“Cas, it’s just a raid. We’re not taking on Isis.”  
  
“You’ll need them!” snapped Cas, and walked back to the bunk to reach under it and get a tomahawk, which he slung on his belt. Dean followed him and put his arms around Cas. “Hey, what’s up?”  
  
Cas turned within his arms to face him, and Dean was surprised at the worried look in his eyes. “You can’t underestimate this, Dean. If you underestimate it, people will die. You need to harden the fuck up, or good people will die.” Cas looked into his eyes, and for once Dean caught a glimpse of the warrior – the old Cas – under the casual, easy-going exterior.  
  
“Me? Harden up? Well, that’s the opposite of the advice I’ve been getting all my damned life,” said Dean with a chuckle.  
  
Cas snapped, “You’re too soft! The other Dean… he-” Cas stumbled over his words as he always did when he mentioned the Dean that had died, then managed to speak on, “-he was tough, you know? But you? You’re not the demon I always thought you were.”  
  
Dean had lifted his hand to stroke Cas’s hair and soothe him, but at Cas’s words he shook his head in disbelief. “Say what?”  
  
“What?” Cas was still snippish.  
  
“‘The demon you always thought I was’? What the hell, Cas?”  
  
“Oh.” Cas fiddled with the ammunition belt around Dean’s shoulder, making sure it was secure.  
  
“When have you ever thought I was a demon?” asked Dean, affronted.  
  
“Well….”  
  
“Seriously? When!?”  
  
“I er, well, you see…” Cas fidgeted and tried to manoeuver out of Dean’s embrace.  
  
Dean tightened his arms around Cas. It was an amazing feeling, to be the stronger of the two of them for once. He loved it. But he tipped Cas’s face up with his hand until the guilty blue eyes met his and said, “Spit it out. When?”  
  
“Well, everyone did. Everyone in heaven, that is. That’s why nobody wanted the job.”  
  
“What job? The job of looking after me?”  
  
“Of pulling you out of hell.”  
  
“Wait, so you got the short straw? Is that what you’re saying?” Dean was about to correct himself and use plain English, but Cas was already shrugging. It was weird having the angel so ‘humanized’ that he understood every colloquialism that Dean came out with; it would take a while before Dean got used to it – that’s if they had a while.  
  
Cas nodded and gave a half-smile. “Well, I certainly didn’t want the damn job. They only sent me because-” he paused and shot a quick look at Dean, “Well, never mind that. But, we’d all heard of you, you know? Dean Winchester, hunter extraordinaire-”  
  
Dean grinned, but seconds later the grin disappeared as Cas went on.  
  
“-orphan, serial killer, pool shark, thief, fraud, torturer of souls in hell; we all knew your reputation. As far as I was concerned, you belonged in hell and I was happy to let you stay there.”  
  
Dean muttered, “Well, gee, thanks.”  
  
Cas shrugged. “I thought you were the demon to end all demons, Dean. We all did. And I never dreamed that I could be wrong. Do you know how many times I’d been proven wrong until I met you? Once. And that was about Lucifer. But anyway, that’s another story. So, I led the force into hell, and there you were. I reached for your soul….” Castiel’s eyes were distant as he remembered. “Well, you certainly weren’t what I expected. And… I was amazed. As soon as I touched you I felt light, light like I hadn’t seen or felt since – well, since Lucifer – but as I said, that’s another story. And you were - even there, in the torture chambers of hell, damned for all eternity, tempted by Crowley himself every day, even after you caved in to Crowley - you were still striving to be good. Your situation was beyond hopeless, and yet, you still tried. You were still full of hope. That’s why Crowley’s torture worked on you in the end, by the way. You should have read the signs at the gate; ‘abandon hope, all ye who enter here.’ You should always take note of the signs on the entrance, Dean. Hope’s the real torture. If you had given up on hope, you wouldn’t have suffered so greatly.”  
  
“But I did give up,” whispered Dean, reeling under the memories of his time in hell that Cas had dragged up. “I did what they asked.”  
  
“No. You didn’t turn. When you were released, did you want to go back to hell? Did you want to keep torturing souls? Or did you want to find your brother and help him? You never became a demon, Dean. As soon as I dragged you out, you went right back to being good. Didn’t you ever realize that?”  
  
Dean blinked a few times. “I didn’t think about it.”  
  
Cas smiled. “You didn’t have to. Goodness is in your nature. It’s a part of you. You strive for salvation, you reach for God, even when he’s so hopelessly out of your grasp that you can’t even believe in him. Even when there is no hope, you cling to hope. Even when you didn’t believe in angels, you could still hear and see me.”  
  
“Wait, when I got out of hell, you thought I was gonna do what? Go nuclear? Stay darkside and wreak havoc on earth?”  
  
“That was the concern. That was why I was sent to guard you.”  
  
“To guard me? I thought you came to protect me. Are you saying you came to protect everyone else against me?”  
  
“Basically. Of course, it didn’t take long for me to realize there was no need to do that. But you see, that was heaven’s mistake. They were slower to realize. They would never have left me guarding you if they knew how pure your soul was -” Cas hung his head in shame. “- what a magnet that would be to me. How it would lead me to fall.”  
  
Dean lifted his chin and kissed him. “You didn’t fall, Cas. You never fell.”  
  
Cas shook his head. “When I look at what I was when I met you, and what I am now, I can’t see that, Dean.”  
  
Dean kissed him again, for a long time, then heard the trucks starting up one by one outside. “Come on. We have a raid to do. We have to go out be all rough and ready, you know.”  
  
Cas looked worried. “You still need to toughen the hell up. If someone shows Croatoan symptoms, shoot them, even if it’s me.”  
  
Dean looked away. “I don’t know if I’ll recognize the early symptoms yet, Cas. I haven’t had enough experience.”  
  
“I’ll tell you.”  
  
“Even if it’s you?”  
  
“Especially if it’s me.”  
  
Dean tilted his head. “Why?”  
  
“It will take you longer to shoot.”

  



	5. Chapter Five - 2014

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There were days when Zachariah would rather face the wrath of God than of Castiel, especially where his favourite human was concerned.

2014

There was a crash in the bedroom. Dean looked up, reaching for his gun instinctively. Cas came out looking wild-eyed, but froze when he saw Dean.  
Dean frowned at him.  
Cas walked over to him and took his arm in a painful grip.  
“What’s wrong?” asked Dean.  
“When are they taking you back?” hissed Cas. “What are they waiting for?”  
Dean frowned again and looked away.  
Cas said, “They’re angels. They’ll take you back, but they’re waiting for something. What is it? Am I going to have to watch you die again?”  
Dean stared at Cas’s wild eyes and panicked expression. “I don’t know.”

2009

Castiel flicked a hand at the ocean’s surface around Zachariah and flames flared up out of it. Zachariah stared around him. “How are you doing that?”  
“If you look carefully you’ll see a fishing net soaked in holy oil,” said Castiel. “Where is he?”  
Zachariah said, “I don’t know,” then looked around him in alarm as the circle of holy fire drew closer around him.  
“I forgot to mention this is a castnet; it has a drawstring.” Castiel’s voice was ice.  
Zachariah cowered as the net close in suddenly again. “What are you going to do?” He looked up at Castiel, searching his face for mercy, but there was none. This was the Castiel that all of heaven knew and feared. The Castiel whose love for humans was legendary in heaven if inexplicable to most. The Castiel whose particular favourite human Zachariah had thrust into the future.  
The Castiel who was now raising an eyebrow and pulling on the string.  
“You wouldn’t dare!” cried Zachariah.  
Castiel kept pulling, his hand rock-steady, until the circle of flames was nearly touching Zachariah.  
“Wait, wait, wait!” screamed Zachariah.  
Castiel tilted his head and watched Zachariah silently.  
Zachariah was shaking. “You’ll never find him if you kill me!”  
Castiel smiled. “If that’s your best threat, think again. I’ll find Dean anywhere you have put him.” He started pulling on the string again.  
“Anywhere,” said Zachariah. “But not anytime.”  
Castiel’s lip twitched angrily. Adding the dimension of time meant that Castiel could search for Dean for a millennium – several – and still not find him. He glared at Zachariah. “I should just end you. I’ve had enough of your fuckery.”  
“You got a foul mouth on you, Castiel.”  
“Only when it comes to creatures like you,” said Castiel, his voice soft.  
The soft voice was what panicked Zachariah. He had worked alongside Castiel enough times in the past to recognize that tone; it usually preceded a swift, merciless killing blow. He said, “All right! I’ll go get him for you. But you’ll have to let me go first!”  
Castiel twiddled the string in his fingers, and Zachariah saw his own death in the archangel’s eyes. “You’ll have him back in a second, Castiel. If you kill me it could take you a thousand years to find him.”  
“I don’t trust you.”  
“I haven’t hurt him. I was only trying to teach him a lesson; to show him the outcome of his actions, to make him stay with Sam.”  
Castiel glared at him. “Then go and get him. And know this; if you don’t return with him, intact, I will hunt you down to my last spark of existence. And when I do find you, you will wish I had pulled this string, because your death will be a thousand years long.”  
Zachariah shivered. “Angel’s honour.”  
Castiel laughed. “I’ve heard that before.” But he dropped the string and disappeared. Zachariah knew he was being watched still though; he could feel it in the buzzing in the air, the prickling feeling between his shoulder blades where the angel blade would strike if he harmed a hair on Dean’s head. He shuddered and tried to preserve his energy for the time travel. If only he could stay in the future time once he got there. But angels had a weakness, when it came to time. Like a rubber ball on a string, they were sucked back to their own time, stuck like the humans crawling along the timeline. It was the only way God could keep them in one time. Otherwise they could have wrought havoc with both history and the future, and hidden any time or place to avoid the consequence of their actions. It was the only thing God insisted on most strongly; that they stay in their own time. To break that rule required much energy, and the effects didn’t last long. Humans, on the other hand, could be plucked from one time to another and would stay whenever they were put, until their short lives ended.  
But Zachariah sighed with relief. Hard as it was, bringing Dean back would save him from Castiel’s wrath. And there were days when Zachariah would rather risk the wrath of God than of Castiel, especially where his favourite human was concerned.

2014

Dean remembered that he had been meaning to ask Cas something. “Cas, when did you fall for me? Was it early on, at the barn, or later – after you become human maybe? When did that happen for you?”  
Cas smiled and held up a hand to point at Dean with a smile. “Oh, I remember that very clearly. It was that night when-”

… and suddenly, 2014 disappeared from around Dean.


	6. Chapter Six - 2009

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean ignored his question and rounded on him. “You angels are just as fucked up as the rest of this godforsaken world. Maybe that’s why you really exist… because you’re NOT too good to be true.”

2009  
Dean was back in his bed in the motel room, and he screamed. “No! No!” He thought of Cas, alone, with Dean snatched from him for the second time, but this time permanently, and a wave of nausea overcame him. He stood up and stumbled into the bathroom, but as he did, there was a loud ‘whoomph’ and strong arms gripped him.  
“Cas! Cas!” he cried. “How, how did- what are you doing here?” For a moment Dean was confused, thinking that it was the human Cas who had been somehow brought back in time with him by the angels, but the grip on his arms was too tight and strong.  
“Dean! What’s wrong?” said Castiel, in a voice deeper and more self-assured than the one Dean had so quickly become used to.  
As Dean looked up and met Castiel’s eyes, he saw angelic indifference there, behind the open concern that Castiel was trying to project.  
“How did you know something was wrong?” asked Dean.  
“You cried out on the psychic plane,” said Castiel. “I think Cerberus heard it at the gates of hell.”  
This was definitely angelic Castiel, but Dean couldn’t help himself. He threw his arms around Castiel’s neck and said, “My God, my God. What have they done to you?”  
Of course it was like throwing his arms around a steel pillar, with the exception that Castiel looked like a puzzled steel pillar. “Dean, what’s wrong?”  
Dean pushed himself away. But then something inside him caved and he begged, “Put me back! Put me back!” He grabbed the angel by both upper arms. It was like grabbing two metal posts. “I can’t leave him back there like that!”  
“Who?” asked Castiel. “Sam?”  
“No!” yelled Dean. “You! Human you!”  
Castiel looked at him blankly with a slight shake of his head. “Human me?”  
“Yes!” said Dean.  
Castiel’s expression was bemused, and Dean yelled at him, “You can’t leave him like that. He’s just lost me, twice. What will that do to him?”  
“Lost you?” said Castiel. “What do you mean lost you?”  
Dean opened his mouth and shook his head, but realized that Cas had no idea what he was talking about. Dean sighed and said, “Never mind.”  
“Time travel can be confusing, Dean.”  
Dean released Castiel’s arms and walked away in disgust. “You’re an angel.”  
“Dean?” said Castiel.  
Dean went on, almost to himself, “I used to think that would be a good thing. I didn’t think you dicks were out there, because I thought that you’d be too good to be true.”  
“What happened to you there?”  
“But you’re not too good to be true, are you?” said Dean, ignoring his question and rounding on him. “You’re just as fucked up as the rest of this godforsaken world. Maybe that’s why you really exist… because you’re not too good to be true.”  
Castiel walked over slowly to stand in front of Dean and waited until Dean met his eyes. “I was human?”  
“Yes,” said Dean.  
“And we still knew each other?” asked Cas.  
Dean looked up, frowning. “Yes.”  
“So even though I was human, we stayed together?” asked Castiel. “What year was this?”  
“2014,” said Dean.  
“Why would you keep me with you all that time if I had no ‘mojo’ as you call it?” asked Castiel. “I would have been no use to you.”  
Dean looked at him bitterly. “Well, somebody had to look after you, didn’t they?”  
Castiel looked even more puzzled and pondered that for a long while, then looked up at Dean with an odd expression on his face. “This human version of me, was I happy?”  
Dean frowned at the angel. “You really don’t have a clue, do you? You were as happy as fistful of contraband chemicals a day could make you.”  
Castiel looked abashed. “But I don’t understand why I was still with you.”  
“Because we were all we each had left,” said Dean. He wasn’t about to explain to angelic Castiel exactly what that meant, and he didn’t exactly want to dwell upon the idea of future Castiel, human Castiel, loving and losing Dean twice in such a short space of time. Dean swore and punched the wall as he thought of that. Pain lanced through his hand and he felt the warmth of blood sliding down his knuckles.  
“Dean!” A second later, angelic hands cupped around his fist and the pain evaporated. Dean looked at his hand. The wound was gone. He turned to Castiel to say ‘Thank you’ and saw an expression on Castiel’s face which frightened him. Castiel was looking at him as though he’d discovered something he shouldn’t have, and suddenly Dean remembered that angelic Castiel had always been able to read his mind.  
He snatched his hand away and snapped, “Dammit, give me some space!” He stalked away, but he could feel the angel watching him. Somehow even though future Cas had been human, when he looked at Dean it meant that he felt something. When angelic Castiel looked at Dean now, Dean felt like a bug under a microscope.  
For the rest of that day, he tried to avoid Castiel, but it proved harder than he expected. The angel seemed particularly attentive, and it wasn’t until Dean snapped something sarcastic to him about getting feathers up his nose every time he turned around, that Castiel disappeared in a huff and didn’t come back.  
Dean crept into bed that night and tossed and turned. He couldn’t believe that after such a short space of time, the feeling of Cas’s body wrapped around his had become something that he felt like he would miss for a lifetime. He flipped over angrily and punched his pillow, but then jumped when a gravelly voice behind him said, “You tell me that you do not want me here, and yet now you are punching your pillow and thinking of me, wishing I was beside you.”  
Dean turned around to look at Castiel. He should have waited until his expression was under control, because Castiel frowned and looked perceptively at him.  
“Cas, don’t,” said Dean.  
“I need to help you, Dean.”  
Dean closed his eyes and sighed. “You can’t give the sort of help that I need right now.” He rolled over so that he didn’t see the answering expression in Castiel’s eyes.  
The angel went silent and for a while Dean thought that he had left. He nearly jumped out of his skin when Castiel’s voice came from behind him again and he realized that he’d been sitting there all that time. “When I was human, why did I sleep in your bed? Why was I wrapped around you and why do you need that?”  
Dean couldn’t answer. He wouldn’t have known how to start. He turned around and looked at Castiel and sighed. “You wouldn’t understand. It’s a human thing.”  
Castiel looked affronted but sighed, “You are right.”  
“And you probably shouldn’t tell people about it, either.”  
There was a short silence while Castiel digested that information. “Is this like the pizza man and the babysitter?”  
“No! Well, yes. Maybe. Dammit, Cas! Just keep your mouth shut.”  
Dean rolled back over and Castiel fell silent again for a while. But then he asked softly, “You know, I never did figure out whether the pizza man loved the babysitter.”  
Dean swallowed. “I don’t know, Cas. I don’t know.”  
The next morning, Dean woke up with a start. He could have sworn that he felt warmth and pressure against him just as he woke up, but then when he opened his eyes, all he felt was a cold space beside him where there should have been a warm body.  
He bit his lip and did his best not to summon Castiel. It was ridiculous wanting to look at the angel’s face, when what he wanted to see most was the face of the human who had finally learned to love him. He thought of human Cas alone in a harsh future, surrounded by Croatoan victims, and a small cadre of people relying on him to stay sober and sane after losing Dean twice. He didn’t like their chances of surviving too long. Dean closed his eyes.  
At most, his presence in the future universe had been simply a very painful coda for Cas; a short extension of a relationship which probably never would have happened if future-Dean hadn’t been staring death in the face.  
Dean lay there for a few more minutes until he couldn’t stand to think about it any longer, then decided to have a shower.  
He was towelling himself dry when there was a familiar whump of wings, and he wrapped the towel around himself hastily. “Cas, for God’s sake.”  
Castiel eyed him up and down curiously. “I can’t understand your reluctance to have me see you without clothes when I can look straight past your clothes and see you naked at any time I wish.”  
Dean sighed. “I don’t think I really needed to know that.” He had known it all along, on some level, but had managed to avoid thinking about it until now. Great. Now he felt like Lois Lane.  
Castiel stared at him blankly, until Dean asked, “Is there something you wanted?”  
Castiel shook his head. “No, nothing. Who’s Lois Lane?”  
Dean ignored the question and tried to suppress his thoughts. He had found he could sort of push them down in his mind so Castiel couldn’t hear them clearly. That is, until Dean fell asleep, and then it was open season on his personal life for the angel. He sighed. “Why are you here? You guys never drop in unless there’s something important going on.”  
Castiel nodded. “There is.”  
Dean waited. When nothing more was forthcoming, he prompted, “Well, what is it?”  
Castiel frowned. “I’m not sure. That’s the problem.”  
“You wanna clue me in?” asked Dean, getting a little frustrated as he usually did when Castiel was being obtuse. He didn’t know whether Castiel did it intentionally, but he did it consistently and sometimes that made it feel deliberate.  
“You seem out of sorts,” said Castiel.  
Dean frowned. “Please don’t tell me that’s your important reason for being here.”  
Castiel nodded. “Well, it is my duty to ensure your wellbeing.”  
Dean gave a wry half-smile. “Well, you can take your dutiful angelic arse out of my bathroom and go and make me some breakfast then, if you want to be helpful.”  
“You know I can’t cook, Dean. Why would I cook when I don’t eat?”  
“Useless,” said Dean. “Bloody useless. I liked you better as a hippy.”  
He shooed Castiel out of the bathroom and tried not to wonder whether the angel could see through walls as well as clothing as he got dressed.  
When he was dressed, he combed his hair and went out to make breakfast. Castiel stood in the corner, doing his dutiful guardian angel impression by just staring intently at Dean.  
Dean waved him over to the seat beside him. “For god’s sake, sit down and talk to me. You’re giving me chills standing there staring at me like that.”  
“I was wondering how you learnt psionic suppression techniques. Was that something you learned in the future?”  
“What? You mean suppressing my thoughts? No! It’s something I’ve learned being around angels with no sense of privacy, you dick. Right here, right now.”  
Castiel fell silent and walked over to sit stiff-backed next to Dean. He waited until Dean finished his food then asked, “What sort of human was I?”  
Dean looked at him. “You were a fighter.”  
“Oh.” Castiel looked disappointed.  
“And you took drugs.”  
“I did? Well, I suppose if I was still living with you as a human I might have.”  
Dean choked on his coffee. “What’s that supposed to mean?”  
“Well, you are rather hard on the humans around you.”  
“Thanks a lot.”  
Castiel frowned at him, and turned to look into his eyes. Too late Dean felt the tingling in his mind that meant the angel was reading his thoughts.  
Dean slammed his fist down on the table, giving Castiel a fright so that he jumped. The tingling disappeared from Dean’s mind, and he said, “Let’s go find Sammy.”  
Castiel followed him out to the car, and Dean smiled. “You get to ride shotgun for once, Superman.”  
Castiel turned to him and Dean whispered their code phrase. “Personal space.”  
The angel stayed out of Dean’s mind, but sulked for ninety miles about it. A couple of times Dean caught him looking at Dean with a speculative expression, but Castiel looked away quickly each time.  
They met up with Sam, and the brothers patched up their differences.


	7. Chapter Seven - 2009

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Castiel was still there, and looked at Dean’s hands. Dean looked down and noticed they were shaking slightly. Castiel put a hand each around the mugs full of boiling hot coffee without flinching and said, “I’ll carry those.”  
> It was a sharp reminder that he was not human.

2009  
Dean woke up with a fright that night, hearing movement in their motel room, but it was only Sam getting a drink of water. “Hey. You okay?”  
“Fine,” muttered Sam, drank the water, checked the windows and went back to bed. He looked over at Dean. “You know Cas is hanging around?”  
“He’s always hanging around.”  
“I mean here, in the motel room, tonight. He was standing at the window for hours.”  
Dean groaned and said, “Go back to sleep.”  
He woke up hours later. By the chill of the air it must be early morning, and still dark. Dean rolled over and looked straight into Castiel’s eyes. “Hi,” he murmured, and put an arm over Castiel’s waist.  
It was like hugging a train. Castiel looked curious. “What are you doing?”  
“Fuck. Half asleep. Sorry.” Dean hastily removed his arm from around Castiel.  
Dean rolled over, his face heating in humiliation. He had just hugged the angel, in their bed, no less. This was going to take a bit of explaining.  
In their bed.  
The thought teased him, then he realized through the haze of sleep, that Castiel had been in his bed. He turned to ask what the angel thought he was doing climbing into Dean’s motel bunk in the dead of night, but Castiel had disappeared.  
The air felt even chillier. Dean pounded his pillow so hard that Sam muttered a protest in his sleep at the noise. Dean lay there until dawn and decided he was not getting back to sleep, so got up and made coffee.  
He looked out the window and raised his coffee mug in a mock toast to Cas the human, five years away in the future. “Good luck, buddy.”  
The sudden heat that stung behind his eyes must be from lack of sleep. Or maybe it was from the memory of that conspiratorial wink that Cas had given him when he first found him in his cabin with a harem of women; the memory of how delighted Cas looked to see him.  
The next morning, he and Sam were using the laptop to look for cases, when Castiel appeared in the room, muttering something in a foreign language and looking distracted. He often did things like that.  
“Well, if it isn’t the freight train,” said Dean.  
Sam looked at Dean and gave an expectant shrug. Dean ignored him.  
“Well?” asked Sam? “You wanna explain that?”  
Dean looked at him. “No.”  
Sam frowned and met Castiel’s gaze, then flinched. “Hey, how’s it going at the angelic coal face?”  
“Not well,” said Castiel in a terse voice.  
Sam sat there looking from Dean to Castiel, but gave up in the end when Castiel didn’t elaborate, and went back to his laptop. “So, there’s a nest of werewolves operating in this neck of the woods. We’ve had killings here and here, one a week for the last three weeks.”  
“You’re working a case now?” asked Castiel tetchily.  
“Shut up, Cas. It’s what we do,” growled Dean.  
“Yeah,” said Sam with a grin. “We do smaller cases sometimes, you know, not just apocalypses.”  
Castiel gave him a long suffering look and opened his mouth to say something, but stopped when Dean walked over to the small kitchen.  
Dean put the kettle back on and felt the air change behind him.  
“Is something the matter, Dean?”  
Dean turned to find crystal blue eyes gazing into his from inches away. It was a small kitchen.  
Castiel realized his error, and said apologetically, “I’d give you some more room, but I’d probably take out a wall.”  
Dean could not speak. The angel’s face was inches from his and all Dean wanted to do was close that gap and pull Castiel to himself, to feel the warmth of Castiel’s body against him. “I’m fine,” he managed to choke out, and turned to the coffee machine again.  
Human Cas might have wrapped his arms around Dean in wordless assurance, even if Dean could not tell him what was wrong. Human Cas might have kissed the back of his neck and whispered something into his ear.  
Castiel the angel just stood inches away, like a warm, concerned freight train throbbing in the confined space of the tiny kitchen. It should have warmed Dean; instead it chilled him to the bone.  
The bitter thought came to Dean that human Cas might be dead by now. Or he might not. There was no way Dean could know when that would happen.  
He picked up the coffees and turned.  
Castiel was still there, and looked at Dean’s hands. Dean looked down and noticed they were shaking slightly. Castiel put a hand each around the mugs full of boiling hot coffee without flinching and said, “I’ll carry those.”  
It was a sharp reminder that he was not human.  
Dean followed him out to the main motel room and sighed when Castiel sat down. “Don’t you have anything better to do than hang around us all day?”  
Castiel looked incredulous, then disappeared without a word.  
“Nice,” said Sam in a sour voice. “What’d you do that for?”  
“He’s getting on my nerves.”  
Sam frowned at him, looked as though he were going to say something more but thought better of it, and went back to his laptop.  
They flushed out and killed the werewolves. They were an old pack and had been vicious and unrelenting in their killings over the last thirty years, as Sam had discovered by searching local fatalities from ‘animal attacks’ on the computer. They had narrowed it down to two families by correlating the attacks that occurred on the full moon and tracked them down from there.  
At one point Dean could have sworn he was going to be bitten, but there was a rush of air and the werewolf flew backwards twenty feet, giving Dean a chance to get to his feet and pick up his silver blade.  
After a hot shower, he went to bed. Sam had wanted to go to a bar for a few drinks and decided to go alone, and Dean gritted his teeth and let him.  
He lay in his bed, wondering if human Cas was still alive. He found himself wishing he was back in 2014, with Cas wrapped around him in his bed, warm and battleworn and drugged and horny and wonderfully human. Dean closed his eyes and wished he could sleep.  
He lay there for hours, heard Sam come in and pretended he was asleep. Even after that, he couldn’t sleep. Eyes closed, Dean tried not to visualize future Cas being shot or butchered or bitten by a Croatoan victim.  
“Dean.”  
This time Dean had not heard Castiel arrive. He opened his eyes and looked up into Castiel’s concerned eyes. He didn’t have the energy to think of a sarcastic response to chase the angel away. “Hey.”   
“Whatever ails you is now affecting your sleep. Sleep deprivation can lead to slower reaction speeds, which in a hunter can be deadly.”  
“Thanks.” He was finding the sarcasm now. “And Cas? I know you were there. Werewolves don’t smell of feathers.”  
“My feathers don’t smell!” Castiel looked offended.  
Dean couldn’t help but smile. “Yes they do.” But then his mouth fell open as Castiel slowly manifested his wings, which filled the motel room, even folded. Dean gazed around, then reached out gingerly and felt a long feather that was on the bed near his feet. “Wow,” he whispered.  
Castiel shivered, and Dean looked up at him. “Can you feel that, when I touch them?”  
Castiel nodded. “Very much so. They are more a part of me than this human vessel.”  
Dean couldn’t help taking a good look at Castiel’s wings. “They’re in better condition than I’ve ever seen them, Cas.”  
“Well, I haven’t been to hell for a while,” said Castiel with a smile. “So, tell me, do they ‘smell’?”  
Dean sat up cross legged on the bed, gazing around at the iridescent black and gold feathers. “No,” he admitted. He reached for the feather close to him and ran his hand along it, realigning several barbules so the vane sat flat and sleek again. He looked at Castiel, who had closed his eyes. “It’s like hair, right? You can’t feel that?”  
“Actually I can,” said Castiel softly. “But it’s not unpleasant.”  
Dean froze at the tone in Castiel’s voice. It was warm, almost human… and sensual.  
“Cas?”  
Castiel did not open his eyes. Then he disappeared.  
Dean sat in the empty motel bed and felt cold.


	8. Chapter Eight - 2009

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cas said softly, “Is that not far more intimate than physical touch – to be so close, no matter how far apart we are?” Dean closed his eyes and nodded.

2009

Dean didn’t see Castiel for a week.  
“What did you say to him?” demanded Sam. Several demons had almost killed them in the car overnight. “Trust you to piss off your guardian angel! If you hadn’t noticed, he comes in handy in our line of work.”  
Dean said nothing. He was starting to think Castiel was not coming back. Maybe Dean stroking his feathers had been too much for him. Maybe he had asked to be taken off Dean’s case? Dean felt hollow and cold at the thought. He had lost human Cas, and now it looked as though his stupid infatuation with angelic Castiel might have cost him even that connection too. Or maybe the powers that be in heaven had decided to take Castiel away from Dean for the angel’s own protection.  
“Let it go, Sammy.”  
“Can’t you at least contact him and ask him to send a replacement?”  
Dean turned to look at Sam. “Oh, well, while we’re at it why not replace me, too? I’m getting tired and slow, according to Cas. Maybe you need to go for upgrades all around, Sammy.”  
Sam looked at him, and his eyes brimmed.  
“Don’t. Don’t do that damned kicked puppy-dog look!” Dean turned the ignition and snarled, “Get in the damned car.”  
Sam got in and sat staring out the window.  
They drove for ten hours, stopping for lunch and then booking into a hotel room after dark. Sam went off to find some dinner, and Dean threw himself down on the bed. “Cas,” he whispered. “Come back.”  
There was a soft rustle of feathers, and Dean hardly dared to look. When he did manage to turn to meet Castiel’s eyes, he knew his eyes were revealing too much. It was all he could do not to sit up and hug the angel, he was so relieved to see him.  
What Dean did not expect was the look in Castiel’s eyes. It was welcoming and almost un-angelic in its warmth. “Hello, Dean.” Or was this how Castiel always looked, and Dean just hadn’t seen it for a week?  
“I’m sorry,” whispered Dean, not really knowing what he was apologizing for.  
Castiel looked at him for a long time, and then said, “It’s not your fault I can read your mind.”  
Dean’s mouth fell open. He thought over Castiel’s reactions over the preceding few weeks, and his mouth went dry. “You knew?”  
“Not at first. At first I thought I was imagining it. You’re very good at that shielding thing, by the way. And I thought maybe what I was seeing in your mind was what I wanted to see. It was a while before I was sure.”  
Dean couldn’t breathe.  
Castiel didn’t seem to notice and went on. “But you know, when you’re sleeping, your minds are open to us. And so clear. But of course dreams don’t come to a schedule. And they’re not reliable. You can imagine things that have never happened, or they can be based on your fears… there are so many variables. I wasn’t sure.” He ducked his head, looking shy, then looked up into Dean’s eyes. “Until I showed you my feathers, and you forgot to shield your mind.”  
“Cas…” Dean knew there was something more intelligent that he should be saying, but he couldn’t think of it. He swallowed. “You disappeared. I thought you weren’t coming back.”  
“I needed advice, from an angel who is… hard to find sometimes.”  
“What…?”  
“It’s not important.” Castiel stood up and walked over to Sam, who had just opened the door and walked in.  
“Castiel!” said Sam.  
Castiel smiled at Sam, then put a finger to his forehead and caught him as he sagged, unconscious. Dean jumped up and rescued the two take-out bags Sam was carrying and put them on the table. Castiel carried Sam over to the bed and laid him out gently, then turned back to Dean.  
“Why did you do that?” asked Dean.  
“So we can talk. Come here, Dean.”  
Dean’s heart hammered and he walked slowly up to Castiel.  
Castiel pulled Dean into his arms. Dean held his breath as feathers materialized around him, cocooning him and Castiel. “Cas, what are you…?”  
Dean gasped as warmth flooded his mind. He sagged at the knees and Castiel held him up. Dean managed to focus on Castiel, and whispered, “What was that?”  
“You’re conscious, and not shielding. I was doing some fact-checking, seeing what you want from me. So I was correct.”  
Dean could only breathe and stare at Castiel.  
Slowly, Castiel leaned forward and brought his lips close to Dean’s. Dean waited, but when Castiel didn’t move, he closed the gap between them and kissed Castiel. It was like kissing a substation. Dean felt his whole body buzz.  
Castiel allowed the kiss for a long time, then gently pushed Dean away.  
“What’s wrong?” asked Dean.  
“My concentration is failing. If I were to lose concentration while I was touching you, it would be disastrous. I could tear you apart at the molecular level.”  
Dean closed his eyes. “So this.. us, it’s impossible?”  
Castiel nodded reluctantly. “Dean, it’s physically impossible. I cannot make love to a human without destroying them. Technically, I can’t even touch you. I can bring my essence near to you; I can manifest in another body and that body can touch you, but I’m not exactly in that body. I’m possessing the body, but I’m not part of it. The best I can do is trick your mind into thinking I am touching you.”  
Dean sighed and nodded. “I kind of figured it was like that. But that means it’s at least possible, doesn’t it, Cas?”  
“Do you understand that? Do you really? A moment’s loss of concentration on my part, a single stray thought, and my mind could rip you apart. I would not mean to, but it could happen any time I got distracted. And from what I was told, and what I have seen in your mind… the activities which you wish to indulge in with me do not lend themselves to unfailing concentration. In fact quite the opposite… I am told I would find them quite distracting.”  
“So you’re saying it’s possible, but risky?”  
“I’m saying that it would almost certainly result in your death.”  
“That’s what I said. Risky.”  
“It’s a chance I’m not willing to take, Dean.”  
“I might be.”  
Castiel shook his head.  
Dean sighed and nodded. “You wouldn’t be, would you?”  
“Your perception requires proximity, to be close to another being. But I don’t even have to be with you to feel what you feel. Else how could I be your guardian? How else would I know when to come?”  
Dean looked at Castiel.  
Cas said softly, “Is that not far more intimate than physical touch – to be so close, no matter how far apart we are?”  
Dean closed his eyes and nodded, but Castiel did not move. “What?” asked Dean through clenched teeth.  
“I can feel great pain in you, but I cannot understand its source,” whispered Castiel. His hand reached for Dean in an instinctive healing gesture, but Dean pulled away.  
“You just said, you can feel what I feel from a long way away. Don’t you see, Cas? I wish I had the same ability, to feel you, even when you’re not here. But I can’t feel a damn thing from you. Well, maybe I do have that ability to sense you, but maybe it’s just that there’s nothing there for me to sense? Maybe you don’t ever feel anything and that’s why I can’t pick up on that connection.”  
Castiel squinted like a child trying to understand higher mathematics. “So my lack of feelings - it is this lack of reciprocity that causes you pain?”  
“I guess.” Dean could not look at Castiel.  
Castiel reached out a hand again, but Dean pulled away and snapped, “Don’t heal me of being who I am, of loving who I love. That sort of pain is the worst kind, but it would be worse again if you took it away.”  
Castiel pulled back, but looked up at Dean, his expression amazed. “You love me?”  
Dean sighed and stood frozen for a long time. Eventually he gave a brief nod.  
Castiel stared at him for a long time, then walked over to the bed and sat down. “People love people, or they love God, Dean. They don’t love angels. We don’t get loved. I don’t think I’ve ever been loved before.”  
“Oh, Cas. Everyone loves you. You’re just too goddamned thick to see it.”  
Dean walked over to Castiel, but hesitated. “Promise you won’t try to heal me?”  
“I won’t.”  
Dean relaxed and reached down a hand to stroke Castiel’s hair. He cupped the angel’s cheek and smiled at him, then leant down and kissed him on the forehead. Castiel looked up at him, his eyes full of wonder. Dean whispered, “Everyone loves you.”  
But still the bright blue eyes that met Dean’s were angelic, and full of confusion. Dean realized that he never did ask human Cas when exactly he became human.  
“When you change, when you become human, Cas.”  
“Yes?”  
“That first night, I’m going to make love to you.”  
Castiel looked up at Dean, his eyes curious. “As you wish.”  
Then there was the sound of fluttering wings again, and Castiel disappeared.  
Dean sat down and said to the air, “Whenever the hell that’s gonna happen.”  
He sat down on the bed and put his head in his hands.

But of course, that was before Lucifer and the Leviathan between them destroyed Castiel’s memories.


	9. Chapter Nine - 2009

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **My arm was twisted in the nicest way, both here and by a close friend, so here's Chapter 9:**

Several weeks later in a hotel room in Turlock, Dean walked from the kitchenette to the bedroom door to call Sam, but stopped in the doorway and looked at his brother. Sam was curled under the blankets, laptop slid from his fingers, eyes closed. Dean sighed.

A soft flutter of wings almost below the threshold of hearing alerted him to Castiel’s presence. Castiel moved up behind Dean and nudged between him and the door frame to see what he was looking at. It was like being nudged aside by a slow-moving train.

Castiel looked at Sam. “It’s almost a shame to wake him.”

Dean shrugged, then their eyes met and he laughed softly. Dean whispered, “Hell, Cas, if you and I can’t take out a poxy nest of vampires by ourselves by now, we’re both in the wrong line of business. Let’s leave him sleep.”

He loved Sam, he really did. But lately Dean had found himself wanting to be alone with Castiel more and more often. The opportunities were there; when Sam slept, or when he was researching and Dean offered to go pick up supplies or ammunition or beer. Sometimes Castiel would simply appear in the car behind Dean and sit there without saying a word. Dean would glance in the rear view mirror, smile and look back to the road. Sometimes Dean would feel him there beside or behind him, know he was there, but he wouldn’t appear.

He didn’t have to look around to know that Castiel was behind him as they fought the vampires late that night, because his back was pressed against Castiel’s; it felt like he was leaning back on moving steel. Dean’s arm was aching from lopping off vampire heads, and the stench of their dark blood assaulted his nose. But behind him, the flare of white light from Castiel’s eyes and the neat snick of his angel blade through vampire necks told Dean he was safe from that direction.

Then the last vampire head was detached from its neck, and Dean felt the familiar buzz of being transported away by Castiel as the police sirens sounded from the main road. The light changed and he realized they were somewhere else, a quiet back street. He wondered if they were in the same town. It didn’t seem to matter to Castiel; he would transport them a mile or a thousand miles, depending on his energy levels and inclination. It was nothing for Dean to be fighting demons or vampires in the middle of the night one second, and find himself in a sunny field in France the next.

But this wasn’t France, and it wasn’t daytime. Dean felt behind him and felt rough timber and bricks. From the smells and sounds around them, he figured it was a back alley in some American city.

Suddenly Dean found himself grabbed by the throat and pushed hard up against the wall. For a moment he thought from the strength and speed, it was another vampire, somehow transported accidentally with him and Castiel. But then he realized it was Castiel staring at him from inches away, holding him by the neck. Castiel was looking anything but angelic. His blue eyes were dark with anger and his mouth was slightly open. He looked flushed and flustered.

Dean looked from side to side, wondering if Castiel had thrust him aside to protect him from an unseen enemy. The angel was still, though, one hand passive at his side, a slight tremor in his hand the only thing giving away the tension in that arm. As Dean met his eyes again, the dark gleam in them softened and Castiel leaned in close, so that his open mouth was nearly touching Dean’s. Castiel released his grip slightly.

Dean coughed. “Dammit, Cas! You nearly choked me.”

For a moment Castiel held Dean’s gaze, but then he relaxed his grip a little more, looking abashed. “Sorry.”

“What’s wrong? What happened?”

“I…” Castiel looked down and away, and released Dean completely. “Nothing.”

Dean frowned, tilting his head slightly to try to assess Castiel’s expression. “Don’t lie to me. You’re lousy at lying.”

“You nearly died!” Castiel burst out, his voice ragged and edged with fury. “You should take more care. Even when I’m there, it would take a split second. There are rules, Dean. We can’t bring people back every time. Not even you.”

Dean rubbed his throat. “It’s hunting, Cas. It’s what I do.”

Castiel did not look at him. Dean whispered, “Hey.”

Castiel stared at the ground. Then he spoke, his voice raspy. “You’re safe now.”

And then he was gone.

Dean swore. He yelled to the air around him, “You’re a great damned communicator, Cas, you know that? Really easy to talk to. Has anyone ever told you that? How am I supposed to talk to you if you’re not even damned here?”

He had sworn and spoken to Castiel after he had disappeared many times in the past, and there was something Dean always noticed; Castiel never came back.

So when the angel manifested right in front of him, wings looming black over them both, body glowing like molten metal and his face white with what Dean assumed was anger, Dean flinched away.

Castiel took one step forward and put a hand around the back of Dean’s head. Dean didn’t quite know what he had done to upset Castiel initially, but he figured it didn’t matter because he wouldn’t have time to figure it out anyway; he was obviously about to die at the angel’s hands.

Castiel pulled his face effortlessly close, even though Dean fought the pressure with all the strength in his body and neck. 

He was still fighting when Castiel’s lips touched his.

Then Dean forgot what fighting was, and maybe even how to move at all.

Castiel’s mouth was like a furnace, but his hands around Dean’s head were feather-light, and the pressure of his lips was careful and gentle.

The alley darkened as the glow from Castiel softened and his wings lowered to cocoon them both in blackness and the smell of feathers. Dean felt himself melt into the kiss before he knew what he was doing.

“Cas,” he mumbled around Castiel’s lips.

Cas pushed Dean back against the wall and moved his hands to run them from Dean’s forehead back over his head, pinning his hair back and deepening the kiss. He explored Dean’s mouth with his tongue. Dean heard a faint whimper and felt his knees sag until they bumped forward against Castiel’s legs. He could feel the steel behind the gentleness, the power barely leashed in Castiel’s careful hands, the slight tremor in Castiel’s lips as he fought not to crush Dean in his embrace. The tremor increased incrementally.

Suddenly Castiel pulled his mouth away. “I can’t,” he choked out harshly. “I’m losing control.”

He stepped back and Dean let him.

Castiel then hesitated as he met Dean’s gaze. “Was it… good? Right?”

Dean started to shake his head, started to nod, to breathe, to speak – started to do so many things at once that he stood there staring stupidly. Eventually he found his voice. “Yes.”

Castiel smiled, his eyes shy. Then he looked terrified and Dean realized he was going to disappear again. The angel was standing like a deer about to bolt away.

Dean reached slowly for him as he stepped forward. “Cas, wait.”

“What?”

“We don’t have to do this all at once. We can work up to things. Practice, you know? We have time.”

Castiel blinked. “Do we?” 

Then he disappeared anyway. Dean blinked at the same time and found himself back beside his car in Turlock.

“Yes,” whispered Dean to the air around him. But he wondered if he believed himself. Did they have time? Then he thought about Castiel kissing him and smiled, and couldn’t stop smiling for the rest of the day.


	10. Chapter Ten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things heat up between Dean and Castiel, but Castiel is still not sure he can protect Dean from his own powers.

“It burns, but it heals,” whispered Dean by way of explanation. “I can feel the burn, but at the same time you’re healing me.”

“Yes,” whispered Castiel, but Dean tilted his head at the tone.

“You’re not really listening, are you?” demanded Dean.

Castiel tilted Dean’s jaw with a careful hand and repeated obediently in a whisper, “Burn, heal, burn, heal,” then moved in to kiss Dean.

Dean knew he should stop him and continue the lesson, but Castiel’s lips were drawing his soul out through his lungs, so Dean closed his eyes and sighed, tightening his arms about Castiel’s shoulders and playing with the downy feathers there as he returned the kiss, with interest. Dean had always wondered what his own personal heaven was going to be like… until the first time Castiel kissed him two weeks ago. Since then he had figured out exactly what it would be like; they would be doing this, all day every day. Dean pressed against Castiel’s thighs and groaned at the pleasure the friction brought him.

“You like that?” whispered Castiel, pulling him close.

“God… I’d like it even more if we took things further,” Dean mumbled against Castiel’s mouth. “How much more training do you need?”

Castiel looked away and down, and Dean frowned. “Cas?”

“I’ve been thinking about that. I don’t think we should go any further. It’s far too dangerous for you.” Castiel avoided his eyes.

Dean hesitated, then lifted the angel’s chin slowly by one hand – slowly because the only way he could do it was if Castiel allowed it. “We agreed.”

Castiel looked everywhere but into Dean’s eyes. “You mean you proposed a plan and I didn’t disagree at the time. It’s not quite the same thing.”

“So what’s changed?”

“I’ve had time to think about this, Dean. The risks to you…”

“Are acceptable. Do you really think you could hurt me, Cas?” Dean ghosted kisses over Castiel’s face. Castiel closed his eyes against the onslaught.

“Come on, please? ‘Future-you’ said we could do this, you just need to figure out how not to hurt me. He said you’d figure a way. I mean, if you can transport me thousands of miles without hurting me, you can do this, right? It’s no more impossible than doing that.”

“But you just said yourself you can FEEL the burn. Even just from a kiss. I can’t….”

“It heals straight away.”

“You shouldn’t feel it. I should feel hot to you, but not burn you. There shouldn’t be pain.”

“Who says I don’t kinda like that?” murmured Dean, pushing harder against Castiel’s body.

“Dean…”

“God, I love it when you just say my voice like that - so low in your throat.”

“Dean, it’s dangerous! I could kill you.”

Dean knew that whispering Castiel’s name deep in his own throat had the same effect on Castiel, and he was shameless in taking advantage of that. “Cas…” he whispered, loving the way Castiel’s body melted a little against his as he did, “…moving me a thousand miles in a heartbeat should theoretically turn me into hamburger mince. But that doesn’t happen because you protect me from any adverse physical effects, right? So how is this any different? We do the deed, you keep your arms around me and heal or protect me or whatever it is you do as we go, and I’ll be fine. All right?”

“Dean, I’m not so sure. What if something goes wrong?”

“You’re a fucking angel!”

Castiel’s mouth quirked up in a rare show of humour. “Pun unintended, right?”

Dean kissed him. “Cas, please don’t make me beg.”

Castiel took in a sharp breath. “Beg?” He pressed Dean against the wall so that the human couldn’t move.

Dean’s mouth dropped open a little. “Oh, my God, you’d like that!” he murmured, before he reclaimed Castiel’s mouth in a passionate kiss.

They kissed for a long time, then Castiel pulled back and said, “Anyway, you got it wrong. I’m an archangel, not an angel.”

“Wait, what?”

“You heard me,” Castiel whispered into Dean’s ear.

“No, that… that’s-”

“Impossible? Tell me this then; how else could I fight Lucifer and Raphael?”

“But there are only three archangels in the bible.”

Castiel sighed as he nibbled on Dean’s neck. “There is an archangel for every day of the week… plus a few spares. I thought you knew the lore.”

“I thought the Bible was the main part of the lore.”

“And you probably think the handbook edition your culture uses these days is the whole of the Bible, Dean. Really? What do you think the Vatican Library is?”

“So… I could be breaking all sorts of rules I don’t know about?” Dean’s smile was slow and wicked.

“You are incorrigible.”

Dean smiled, but decided he had had enough of talk. He couldn’t move against Castiel’s weight pinning him to the wall, so he tugged at Castiel’s coat and pulled him even tighter. Dean could feel the bruising of his body. He kissed Castiel harder until the angel reacted with a low moan of desire and pinned Dean harder to the wall. Dean felt his body flattened until he thought he must be a mere sliver of existence, Castiel’s power crushing him and the angel’s lips turning his into molten fire. I could disappear into him, thought Dean, wanting it even as he thought it.

The pressure eased and Castiel dropped slowly to his knees, pulling Dean’s sshirt and jacket apart with hot hands. The fire of his lips trailed down over his chin and down Dean’s throat and chest.

Dean gasped as Castiel popped the fly of Dean’s jeans open with one hand and ran a fingernail down the zipper, opening it. The angel’s dark, wanton hair tickled his belly as Dean felt his own cock pushing outward against the release of pressure. He groaned and canted his hips upward as the fire of Castiel’s lips made its way down tantalizingly closer to his dick. He was aching with the need to know that fire, and suddenly with one movement Castiel tugged the sides of his jeans and briefs down, freeing Dean and claiming him in his hot mouth a moment later.

Dean shuddered and arched up. “Oh, Cas.” Some part of Dean wondered whether he was still in one piece, or whether Castiel had burned him away and would have to put his soul and body back together afterward. The rest of Dean didn’t care, because he was in heaven.

His fingers curled and scraped in Castiel’s wings, drawing grace from the scratches they made. Dean watched it in wonder as it drifted and curled up from Castiel’s shoulders. He wanted to ask Castiel whether he had hurt him, but Castiel merely moaned appreciately around Dean’s dick, which destroyed any chance Dean had of forming a comprehensible sentence.

And now Castiel was sliding his lips up and down Dean’s dick. An image of hot apple pie came to Dean, and his mouth twisted one-sided in humour. Then he cried out as Castiel swallowed him deep and for a moment Dean thought he had actually swallowed his dick. Hot fire spread from the point of contact out from his groin, up into his belly. Castiel reversed the motion and the fire retracted, giving Dean another moment of lucidity. He looked down, almost surprised to find his body intact. Castiel looked up at him with an odd expression, and Dean frowned, puzzled. But then the angel sank his mouth over Dean’s dick and Dean had a moment to see grace leak from Castiel’s lips and surround him, before the pleasure from whatever the hell Castiel had just done spiralled around his dick and seemed to tear his body in two. Dean opened his mouth to scream, but passed out.


	11. Chapter Eleven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Castiel lost control and hurt Dean, and he needs to find an angel expert in healing to help Dean. Dean hasn't met a brother of Castiel's yet, who hasn't struck him the wrong way. Sam teases Dean, but it backfires on him.

Through the pain, Dean thought he heard a small but intense explosion of light and sound, but then he felt Castiel’s arms close tight around him. Dean squirmed, because the angel had lit up bright white and the touch of his arms was like brands wrapping around Dean’s body. For a moment everything went black and cold, then there was a sense of falling and someone said something.

“What have you brought me now, brother?”

Dean tried to open his eyes to see the person who had spoken, but he didn’t seem to have control over his body.

He heard Cas’s voice saying, “He needs help!”

Dean wanted to speak, to tell Cas that his arms were burning him still, but then a sort of purple haze surrounded Dean, and pain speared up through his body. It felt like every muscle in his body had convulsed at the same time, like every nerve had been triggered to fire to the maximum.

It was over as soon as it started, and Castiel’s anxious and relieved face was looking at him. The pain had gone as quickly as it came.

“So this is Dean?” asked the angel standing behind Castiel. Dean craned to see him, but the angel turned away as he did. All Dean could see was the hood covering his features.

Dean took a deep breath to speak, but then found he had to take another, and another, deeper breath, and his lungs were still burning with the need for air.

The angels kept talking, oblivious of Dean’s situation.

“How did you-”

The other angel’s laugh was warm. “You spun all the stars in their orbits and risked my wrath by flattening my beloved garden, all to bring me a half-dead mortal. Of course it’s Dean. What happened to him?” Dean managed to glance at him. He was standing in a deep blue cloak, with his face turned away from Dean, surveying what looked like a rainbow coloured blast zone next to a house-sized purple onion with a door, beneath a yellow and grey sky. Dean realized that he must have begun to hallucinate. He was amazed that he could still see and hear anything.

It was breathing that was proving problematic.

“… I did,” said Castiel, which didn’t make sense to Dean. He had bigger worries.

Dean clutched desperately at Cas’s coat, feeling himself blacking out again, trying to tell him without words that whatever he was breathing, it wasn’t oxygen. The other angel realized what was wrong before Castiel did. Typical, thought Dean ruefully.

“You need to get him home!”

Suddenly the alien planet disappeared from around Dean and he was in a room, and there was oxygen. He put both hands on his knees and gulped several lungfuls of air in rapid succession, then looked at up Castiel. “What the hell?”

“Are you all right?”

“I think so. Dammit, Cas! What the hell was that? And who is that angel?” Dean’s voice was rough and his throat felt like sandpaper. “Where are we?”

Castiel looked guilty. “This is all my fault. I knew we should not do that.”

There was a polite knock at the door. The voice of the other angel came from outside. “Would you mind getting your giant cube out of what’s left of my garden?”

“Yes! Sorry about your garden. And thank you.”

“You owe me, little brother.”

Dean looked at Castiel, wide eyed. “Little brother?” He walked toward the door and reached for the handle.

“I wouldn’t do that. There’s still no air out there,” said Castiel mildly.

Dean was tempted to open the door anyway, but stopped, not wanting to experience any more burning in his lungs at least for now. “Can he come in here?”

“That’s not really advisable. He’s… in hiding, of sorts. The fewer people know his face, the better. And the sooner we get away from here, the better.”

Dean frowned. “How do you know where he is, if he’s in hiding?”

Castiel shrugged. “I put him here.”

“I want to meet him,” insisted Dean.

“Why?” There was an edge of irritation in Castiel’s voice.

“Because he’s the first ‘brother’ of yours I’ve met that hasn’t given me instant ‘douchebag’ vibes.”

Castiel looked at Dean with a half-smile in his eyes. “Perhaps that’s why he didn’t get along with the others?”

“Now I really want to meet him.”

Castiel looked at Dean, then said firmly, “No. You’re going home.”

“But Cas-”

“You need to rest.”

 

Castiel stepped towards him and wrapped his arms carefully around Dean again. Dean couldn’t help flinch away at first, anticipating the burn, but Castiel murmured, “No need to hurry this time. It won’t hurt.”

Dean sighed and nodded.

“Close your eyes, Dean,” whispered the angel.

Dean didn’t want to. He wanted to see where they were going and how, but he had learnt that when Castiel said things like that, there was often an unspoken rider on his words that the angel rarely bothered to elucidate. Something like, ‘or they’ll be burnt out of your skull.’ Dean closed his eyes.

This time he was conscious, and felt the buzz of Castiel’s power keeping him warm and moving him through something that might have been ice, if it didn’t feel like they were moving through it at impossible speed.

“You can open them now,” said Castiel.

They were back in the Sam and Dean’s motel room on Earth, and Castiel was giving him one last concerned look before disappearing in a ruffle of feathers.

Dean looked up at the ceiling, “Oh, come ON.”

“What?” came Sam’s cheeky voice from the bathroom door. “You didn’t get a kiss goodbye?”

Dean turned and gave Sam the foulest look he could muster. It wasn’t too hard to do, considering how pissed Dean was about first having his tryst with Castiel interrupted, then having had some sort of hallucination about alien planets with lone angelic inhabitants, then finding himself without Castiel.

He consoled himself by grizzling at Sam. “Shut your pie hole.”

Sam chuckled and turned back into the bathroom to finish cleaning his teeth.

Suddenly the air crackled and hummed around Dean again and Castiel appeared and gripped Dean’s jaw in one hand. He leaned in and captured Dean’s lips in a possessive kiss, bringing his other hand behind the back of Dean’s neck. It was raw, it was passionate and it left Dean breathless when the angel disappeared again.

It wasn’t until Castiel had been gone quite a few seconds that Dean turned and saw Sam standing in the bathroom doorway, mouth open in an ‘O’ and toothpaste slowly sliding down his chin.

“Er, yeah. There’s that,” said Dean, and walked over to the fridge to get a beer.

A dollop of toothpaste landed on the carpet.


End file.
